Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Wednesday, November 27th.

Today on Forbes, Inside America's top private companies, from Cargill to Chick-fil-A to

Coca-Cola beverages.

Sporting a signature red, Make America Great Again baseball cap, President-elect Donald Trump

stood among the cheering crowd gathered

last week in southern Texas to watch SpaceX successfully launch Starship, its sixth test of the new rocket

developed to take people and cargo to the moon and beyond. Nearby was Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO

and the world's richest person, with whom Trump has been spending a lot

of time since the November 5th election. Tapped by Trump to co-chair newly created advisory board

Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, Musk will continue to work alongside the president-elect.

Such close ties with Trump bode well for SpaceX, which has already gotten

nearly $20 billion in government contracts over the years from such clients as NASA and the Department

of Defense. It is valued at $210 billion by private investors. Even before Musk befriended Trump,

SpaceX had been on quite a run. Estimated 2023 revenue

for the space company nearly doubled from the prior year to $8.7 billion. It was enough to rocket

it up 85 spots to number 60 this year, making it the biggest gainer on Forbes's 2024 list of America's top private companies.

A big factor boosting revenue? Starlink, the company's fast-growing satellite business.

The network, which uses some 6,000 satellites, provides internet access to remote locations around

the world, including new markets in Africa

and the Middle East.

Not everything Musk touches has flourished.

His other big private company, Social Media Firm X, dropped to number 185 from number 149

...